De la compétitivité linguistique
Linguistic competitiveness

Summary/Abstract: Performing an analysis on the concept of « competitiveness », applied to actual languages, highlights its unacceptability, because of its insubstantial definition. Besides, the functional levels of the languages often described as « of international use » result to be of a huge variety, excluding the actual existence of the comparative criteria that are used in the « competitiveness » approach. Using these two inconsistent concepts in designing cultural and educational projects caused, these last decades, some spectacular failures – including those of many projects dedicated to eradicate the perceived « loss of speed » of French, compared to English. In fact, the essence of the issue is quite different: it’s incorrect to compare a « Lingua franca » (i.e. Basic English used for minimal communication) to the whole complexity of a culture- and civilization-bearing language. This study is a first step in exploring this huge area.

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